


you down every road

by vaudelin



Series: supernatural codas [15]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Apathetic Dean Winchester, Dean struggles with the meaning of Free Will, Episode Related, Episode: s15e02 Raising Hell, First Kiss, Five Stages of Grief, Getting Together, M/M, Miscommunication, POV Dean Winchester, Team Free Will (Supernatural)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-22
Updated: 2019-10-22
Packaged: 2020-12-28 15:55:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,886
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21139283
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vaudelin/pseuds/vaudelin
Summary: “Excuse me, what?” Dean frowned. “Since when have we agreed Cas’s going to Hell?”Sam gave him a puzzled look. “We’re down to last straws, Dean. He’s the only other one who can go.”“It’s the only way,” Cas agreed archly.Dean glared at him, though Cas’ gaze was carefully pointed aside.Of course it was. Chuck wouldn’t have it any other way.





	you down every road

It had been easier to accept, back when they were dealing with the Apocalypse.

There had been a book to blame, for one. A destiny foretold. Somebody had sat down long ago and said God destined the world to end. Fate had already laid out the way things ought to be.

A book was easy to rebel against. Destinies were distant, dismissible. Fates could be remade.

Those were easier chains to see. To be willing to fight and break.

It had been harder to accept, when it involved his family.

His parents, for one. Heaven’s cupids, pushing them together. Hell’s forces, pushing harder still. Two kids had to come from it, after all, no matter how John and Mary might have actually felt about having a family. They would love each other in spite of the fights, in spite of their fates.

Those machinations were harder to accept. To revisit as the result of an outside hand.

At least their love could be argued was eventually real. At the time. At least.

It was damn near impossible to accept anything, now that Dean knew the truth.

Mary cut the crusts off little Dean’s sandwiches, because God wanted a memory that would make Dean forever love her. After she was gone, Dean would trust it as proof that she loved him too. John molded Dean into a good little soldier because God wanted that instinct etched within him, envisioned on a grander scale. Sam was given to Dean so that Dean had something to fight for. Sam was Dean’s brother so that God could toy with taking him away too.

These were the chains that Dean couldn’t shake. Wasn’t sure whether he wanted to. Wasn’t sure what would be left of him if he ever let them go.

The Winchester brothers, Sam and Dean: nothing but God’s favorite television show.

Dean wondered just how much of his life came down to a script he couldn’t see.

Maybe it would’ve been better if he had never found out.

* * *

Harlan’s high school felt much like the bunker had been, in the days after accepting the apocalypse world refugees. The halls, then, had been busied by strangers out of sorts, in need of distracting duties. It had taken long weeks for them to find their footing amid their brave new world.

Harlan didn’t have weeks to settle into what was happening. Harlan didn’t even have days before the hellmouth would swallow it whole.

In the bunker, after Michael, Dean had been unmoored among the other world refugees, now that they had grown into hunters that moved under Sam’s command. Some of those hunters were here now, helping. Survivors of Michael’s final purge.

Ben and Frankie had been both, surviving hunters who had answered their call. Both men were dead now too, victims of a career with a short expiry date.

The only reason why Dean wasn’t dead already was that Chuck had taken a shining to him, before he was born. He had the script of Dean’s life laid out the second Mary and John made eyes at each other, had plotted out its pitfalls and raised its stakes. God knew exactly how often Dean had taken the bullet, the stab wound. The hellhound’s bite and the rack’s knife plunging in his hand.

That shine must have rubbed off of Dean by now. No way Chuck would keep keeping them alive now that Sam had wounded him with his own gun.

Everything before that shot fired was meaningless. Chuck had always, always been pulling their strings. Even now, knowing how the environment around him had been sculpted, Dean doubted those strings weren’t still being pulled.

After a listless round confirming the status of the high school, Dean headed for the gym. He found Sam back in the athletics office, sitting at the table with Rowena, Belphegor, and Cas. As the newest interesting thing in the room, they all looked to Dean in unison, an effort clearly meant to avoid the awkward tension growing between them.

Dean held out a hand as he sat by Sam, accepting the beer that he passed over. The cap snapped off, pinging across the table. “Status?”

“Well, we’re thinking—” Sam began, floundering, just as Belphegor, leaning back, announced, “We’re boned.”

His chair rocked on two legs, briefly warbling. Cas clearly looked like he was thinking of kicking them out.

Dean rubbed his eyes. “Actual plans, please.”

Rowena sighed. “There’s some spells that might help stretch the warding out.”

“If you had the book with you,” Belphegor finished.

Rowena leveled him an icy stare. “I would have brought them with me had I known what you were up to.”

“Oh,” Belphegor said, “so this is my fault now?”

“Is there something else?” Sam interjected, peacemaking. “Instead of just containing the ghosts, we seal the source—”

Dean tried to listen, cut through the bickering. He considered bringing himself back into brainstorming. He really did. Except in the back of his mind, there was the niggling thought: _What would’ve happened if Chuck were still here? _

_What solution would he give us?_

“—and Belphegor will take me to Hell,” finished Cas, breaking Dean from his dreaming. Dean shot a look around the table, found it shocking to see both Sam and Rowena nodding in agreement.

“Makes sense,” Rowena said. “Samuel and I will work the sealing spell from without; you two work to close it from within.”

“And how’s Cas getting out?” Sam asked. “Worst come to worst, Belphegor’s fine staying down there, no offense—”

“None taken.”

“—but Cas is a whole other issue.”

“Excuse me, what?” Dean frowned. “Since when have we agreed Cas’s going to Hell?”

Sam gave him a puzzled look. “We’re down to last straws, Dean. He’s the only other one who can go.”

“It’s the only way,” Cas agreed archly.

Dean glared at him, though Cas’ gaze was carefully pointed aside.

Of course it was. Chuck wouldn’t have it any other way.

* * *

“Are you really okay with this?” Sam asked.

They were alone, for once; Rowena was cordoned off with Cas and Belphegor, reviewing their roles in the upcoming spell. Sam sat with his arms folded over the back of his chair. He was rubbing at his sore shoulder. His attention followed as Dean crossed to the fridge for another beer.

“Yep.” Dean popped the cap. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

Sam frowned. “Because it’s Cas.”

“Mm-hm.” Dean took a pull off the bottle, drank from it longer than he should. A heavy breath hissed out of him. “Already got that part.”

Sam’s eyebrows rose. “It’s Hell, Dean.”

“Yeah,” Dean agreed. He remembered. Between Belphegor and the hellmouth spewing souls, it was hard to forget Hell was coming for them. And if Bel was right in what he told Kevin, if Hell-touched souls could never get to Heaven...

Didn’t matter. Only difference between then and now was that Cas was on his way to Hell too.

“Rowena’s trying to safeguard it,” Sam continued, “but the whole point of the spell is to seal Hell’s broken gates. If Cas can’t make it out in time—”

Which would Chuck prefer: Cas being trapped, or Cas getting out in the nick of time?

Probably the former. He could get more mileage from it, wrench Dean’s heartstrings longer with that.

Fuck.

Dean swallowed. He touched a hand to the headache cropping up between his brows. The beer he set shakily aside. “I know,” he said. “I know.”

“So,” Sam began, “are you going to talk to him, before? Or…”

It took two tries for Dean to settle against the table edge. His arms were too unsteady to prop him up; he bundled them across his chest instead. “We already talked.”

Sam leaned back. His arms dropped off the back of the chair.

Dean rubbed at his eyes. “I don’t know what you expect me to do.”

“I don’t—” Sam exhaled harshly. “Don’t let him go, not when you’re still... like this. If it ends up that he—you’ll regret it if you didn’t clear the air.”

“We’re assuming this’ll even work,” Dean replied, thinking. How many attempts would they have to make before their solution actually stuck? The first try never worked, not on Chuck’s watch, but seeing how they were already past that...

Sam’s jaw flexed, his hardened gaze fixated on the ground. Then, quiet: “Are you giving up on us?”

Did the second attempt ever work? No. No, so Rowena’s Hell spell was doomed from the start.

But then, the drama of it working out after all, and then of Cas getting stuck behind the seal—

It was a gamble, assuming either way…

“Dean,” Sam said loudly. “Are you even listening to me?”

Dean rocked up from his perch, crossing the room towards the garbage can. “Yeah, I hear you,” he grumbled, dropping his empty into the bin.

“So are you…?” Sam’s look was pleading.

“Yeah.” Dean clenched his jaw. “Yeah, I’ll say goodbye.”

* * *

A few heartbeats of hesitation, then Dean gave three raps against the frame of the door.

Cas looked up from the discarded schoolbook he was reading, in the dark in an empty classroom. He looked overlarge and looming, his shoulders stopped, knees pressed beneath a desk meant for teenagers. His trench coat billowed out to either side of the chair. “Dean.”

Dean bent a shoulder against the door frame, his arms crossed. “So. Plan ready?”

“Oh. Yes.” Slowly, Cas recovered from his faltering. “We’re as prepared as we can be.”

“And you’re up for it,” Dean confirmed. “Whatever this… macguffin spell is.”

Cas frowned. “Unless you have another celestial ally, Belphegor and I are the only ones who can do this from inside Hell.”

“Right. Perfect.” Dean clicked his tongue, stepping into the room. “So this is our big goodbye, then, huh?”

They were always saying goodbye to each other. Circumstances just came around like clockwork, forcing them apart again and again and again.

Cas’ expression wavered. He rose carefully from his desk seat. “I’m coming back, Dean.”

“Yeah, I know,” Dean said tonelessly. He was so tired. It hurt, even trying to think. “Just saying, this is the part where we make — I don’t know. Announcements.”

Cas’ frown approached Dean. “I don’t understand. Why are you talking like this?”

Does Cas even care about him? Or did Chuck just think Cas was a good way to jerk Dean around?

“Nothing,” Dean mumbled. He reached out as Cas came closer, both hands crumpling into lapels. “Doesn’t mean anything,” Dean added, before roughly reeling in Cas, their mouths coming together in a clash.

Cas met the kiss with a shock that immediately melted. His hands touched Dean’s neck, his cheek. His hair. His mouth was wet. His lips parted with the slightest pressure.

Cas was bright and beautiful starlight. Handsome. Perfect. He was warm in every way Dean wanted to be.

And maybe in another life, maybe in the one that existed before he knew Chuck’s truth, Dean would have done this right. He would have felt the fear shivering through his insides, eating his guts with need and worry, and he would have crawled through it anyway.

Just to have this, for a moment. A breath outside of dreams.

Or maybe Dean wouldn’t have done it all. Odds are, in a world where he didn’t know, Dean would have remained too cowardly to confess himself to Cas, to touch his mouth against Cas’ mouth, his cheek, his lips. To feel Cas’ warmth with any part of himself other than his hands.

But in this life, Dean was tired. He was tired and unhappy, and he knew what was coming. He knew the script, and what was meant for him. He couldn’t have Cas and keep him too.

Who was to say Dean even wanted this? Nothing was real anymore.

Cas pulled back, after Dean fell still. He fought and failed to meet Dean’s eye.

“Dean,” Cas said. His hand rested against Dean’s cheek. A thumb brushed the thin skin beneath Dean’s eye. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” Dean repeated, an echo drawn out from a hollow. “Just playing the part.”

* * *

Tension was alive and thrumming in the athletics office, ahead of the go-time called for the spell. Rowena would look too-often at Dean, then at Cas, then back. Sam was perpetually frowning at Dean, and huffing. Belphegor sat back and observed it all with a smile of delight.

“So,” Sam began. “There’s been some second-guessing.”

Dean groaned, rolling his head along the back of his chair. They needed to fail their second plan before they could succeed at the third. Second-guessing now was only delaying the actual closing of the hellmouth. “Who’s doubting?”

“Me,” Cas said gravely. “And you.”

“Me?” Dean sat up. “I haven’t said shit.”

Belphegor snorted, to which both Cas and Sam shot him cold glares.

“Exactly,” Rowena piped up. “As flattering as I might take it, it’s very unlike you to not question a plan of mine.”

Dean waved his hand across the table. “Do what you’re going to do, Rowena. Just get this show on the road.”

“What if I’m unready?” Cas countered. “What about my doubts?”

Dean leveled him a look. “Then get ready.”

Sam abruptly pushed his chair back, a hissing scrape. He tilted his head towards the door. “Dean.”

Rolling his eyes, Dean withdrew from the table and followed his brother out of the room.

Barely in the hallway, Sam was already pacing. His good hand raked through his hair. His eyes were embers that seared where they landed on Dean. “What’s wrong with you? Just what has been your problem?”

Dean scoffed. “Says the guy with the open shoulder wound.”

“Don’t change the subject,” said Sam. “We’re down to the bottom line here. If we say we’re doing this, then we need to be all on-board.”

“I’m on-board,” Dean argued. “Who says I’m not on-board?”

Exhaling harshly, Sam looked away. “I thought we agreed: it’s us versus Chuck’s end. All or nothing, we’re in this together.”

Dean opened his mouth, though his thoughts were caught on the truth. He said instead, “I’m here, aren’t I? So what difference does it make?”

“Dean.” Sam’s eyes turned pleading. “You say you’re here, but everything about you is begging us to stop. I need you here _for real_.”

Dean shut his eyes, hard. “We don’t have time for this. Bottom line and all that.”

“And what about Cas, huh?”

It was a low blow from Sam, changing tactics like that. Anger flared hot within Dean. “What about him?”

Sam scoffed. “Nothing. Just — all these years, and now we’re — You’re still treating Cas like _that_. Treating all of us like—” He swallowed hard. “If you don’t think it’ll work, just say so. Don’t just — let this end. Not like this.”

That — Dean couldn’t help cracking a grim smile. “Not sure we have a say in that, Sammy. Not just yet.”

Sam stilled. His arms hung stiff at his sides. “So that’s what this is about. You don’t think we have free will.”

“Aw, c’mon.” Dean extended his hands, as close as he could approximate to playful. “I believe in it, just not…” He sighed, wiped a hand over his face. “Think it’s gonna be awhile before the wheels fall off the cart we’ve been riding.”

From behind them came a familiar gravelly voice: “Do you know how you prove free will?”

Dean lolled his head, turning sluggishly to face Cas. “Tell us, oh wise one.”

Cas glowered out from the office doorway and stalked towards Dean, coming up close in a way Dean hadn’t seen him do in a decade. His presence felt like lightning, the prickling sensation singeing the air before the striking storm. Dean felt the hairs on the back of his neck rise as Cas touched a hand to his chest, broad until it bunched into a fist.

“Cas?” Dean asked, alert in a way he hadn’t felt in days. Cas was close enough Dean couldn’t see the color of his eyes.

Leaning in, Cas said, “You prove it by doing things you don’t want to do.”

Dean balked, ready to argue, just as Cas’ mouth slammed into his.

It wasn’t pretty, not that Dean was anyone who could insist that it should’ve been. Cas was stronger than him, and if not for his grip on Dean’s shirt, Dean would have been bowled over from the weight of Cas upon him. Cas’ mouth was dry, his movements mechanical. Dean held onto the back of his trench coat, barely getting into it before Cas was pulling off again.

“There you go,” Cas said, wiping his mouth on his sleeve. “You’re right. There’s no such thing as free will.”

Cas’ lips were pink and swollen. Dean couldn’t tell whether Cas was mocking him or not. Dean couldn’t look away.

To Sam, Cas said, “We move on Rowena’s spell first thing in the morning.” With a cold glance at Dean, Cas was silent as he stormed away.

Sam’s baffled gaze drifted slowly back to Dean. “Is this something that’ll keep happening with you two?”

Dean turned his back, not wanting his brother’s eyes on him, fearing what he might see. “Shut up and get the spell ready.”

* * *

An hour until dawn and Dean still wasn’t sleeping. He couldn’t. Not when his nerves were so wholly frayed.

Fuck Cas. Fuck Sam, fuck Chuck, and fuck everyone who had ever bent Dean’s will away from him.

Everything had become so messed up since his mom died. Dean wished Mary was still here to steady him, lead him through what came next.

Dean didn’t know much anymore, but he was not going to spend his last night on earth dreaming up ways to curse out Cas. He crawled off the cot where he was failing to catch some shut-eye, carefully picked his way through the rest of the gymnasium’s sleeping masses.

Cas was at the back wall outside the rest of them, watchful at a distance. Once he saw who was approaching, he didn’t look to Dean again.

“So.” Dean settled on the bleachers beside Cas. The both of them stared out ahead. For a moment, it reminded Dean of a couple of park benches, many years ago.

Cas didn’t react much to Dean, though a sharp breath rushed out from him whether he wanted it to or not. He looked torn between keeping an ear tilted toward Dean, and just simply walking away.

“Y’know,” Dean said, once it was clear Cas wouldn’t bail, “you don’t literally have to go to Hell just because you’re pissed at me.”

Instinct had Cas whipping around a look at him. _“I’m_ angry with _you_?”

Mirthless, Dean barked a laugh. “It’s all we’ve been doing lately.”

Cas breathed in deeply. He went back to staring at the gym’s far wall. The dim scoreboard. The line of pennants, marking out victories in track and volleyball.

With his hands draped between his knees, Dean clenched at nothing. He wanted something cold. Something he could crumple. It wasn’t even daylight yet and he was already craving another beer.

Worse, the numbness that had filled Dean until now was slowly bleeding into anger; every molecule in his body was saturated with a need to destroy. He lit the match carefully, parsing out a slow statement of fact.

“Your whole definition of free will?” Dean began. “I don’t like it. In fact, I fucking hate it.” He averted his gaze, leaving Cas to stare at the back of his neck. “I don’t want to live doing things I don’t want to do. Already spent too much of my life doing things I hated — being someone I hated — and now you’re saying I gotta—”

“Dean.” Gently, Cas touched his arm. “You don’t have to.”

“Oh yeah?” Dean rounded on him, hot, too hot. “You’re the one saying — kissing me when you don’t want—”

“Dean,” Cas said again. “You don’t _have _to. The point is that you could.” Two hands came to either side of Dean’s face, holding him still.

Dean’s pulse was hot in his ears, his neck. He put his hands on Cas’ wrists. He wanted to push Cas away. He held him in place instead.

Hesitant, Cas began, “When we first met — when I was still getting to know you — you asked me to rebel. And I didn’t want to. Every wavelength of my being didn’t want to betray the purpose I’d been bestowed. But I did.” Cas curved in closer, his knees touching Dean’s knees. “The fact that a thing like me could do what I dreaded proves there is free will in the world.”

Dean hadn’t thought about things that way. That whole time, during the Apocalypse, he’d been in survival mode. Begging anybody who could hear him to help turn the tide away from fate.

Cas had answered. Cas always came when Dean called.

“But I—” Dean swallowed. He felt the movement in both his throat and in Cas’ hands. “What if that was the choice Chuck wanted you to make?”

“It was still a choice,” Cas said. “Even if everything we’ve ever done has aligned with Chuck’s wishes, that is luck, not determinism.” He dropped his hands, though he let Dean still entwine their fingers. Dean felt cold and clammy without him. “What I said was a point to prove, not a credence to live by. That you _can_ do these things means more than you living your life so hatefully.

“And you do hate it,” Cas added quietly. “I know it. I should have phrased what I said in a better way.”

Dean’s smile curved crooked. “Yeah, well. I started it.”

“You did,” Cas replied. Then: “You shouldn’t have kissed me like that.”

“I know.” Dean sighed, stooped his brow to Cas’ shoulder. “But I’d meant to. Years and years ago, except better. I should’ve—”

“I shouldn’t have kissed you that way either,” Cas cut in. “It was only that — after so long without—”

“I know,” Dean said again. He glanced up, found Cas’ mouth close enough to kiss. So he did.

It was something they could do.

“I’m sorry,” Dean said, their breaths co-mingling.

Cas dipped in, gently grazing at Dean’s lip. “Me too,” he said. “Me too.”

* * *

“Are we ready, boys?” Rowena called, from her position by the hellmouth. The sound of the souls spilling out was louder here. Sam kept her steady with a hand placed on the small of her back.

Belphegor shrugged, clapped his hands. Dean didn’t waste further time watching him. He turned back to face Cas.

“You ready?” Dean asked, quieter than Rowena, though loud enough to be heard over the shrieking din.

Cas nodded, squeezing his hand. “I’ll come back to you.”

“You better,” Dean muttered, pulling Cas into a hug, fierce. Their stubbled cheeks scraped together. Into his ear, Dean hissed, “Don’t you dare not make it out.”

Cas tightened his arms. Then he let Dean go. He gave that soft smile of his, then joined Belphegor on the line of the hellmouth's fray.

_This will work_, Dean thought, his whole body immersed in the feeling, singing it like a song. _Nice try, Chuck, but we’re going to make it_.

“Alright, let’s do this,” Dean shouted. He raised his arm as a signal: “Three, two, one—”

Go.

**Author's Note:**

> rebloggable on [tumblr](https://vaudelin.tumblr.com/post/188525659638/you-down-every-road).


End file.
